2 out of 5

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

This is a movie that certainly happened.

I worked at a video retail / rental store during peak DVD era and during the physical format decline. The first Pusher movie was something I constantly stocked and figured I would get around to watching – gritty gangster films were certainly in my cool movie zeitgeist, and the flick had been mentioned in circles that had my approval – but I never got around to it. Maybe for various reasons, but – easy to say in retrospect, though I swear I felt this way at the time – something about the way it was described, and even the box art, made me feel like it was a movie that was going to be trying really hard. And not necessarily failing, just clearly trying all the same. Pusher 2 and 3 gave off a similar odor; I saw Bronson, but didn’t quite get the Wow factor I was hoping for. It should be said I somehow wasn’t aware that Bronson was the same director as the Pusher trilogy – Nicolas Winding Refn – but of course, a linking narrative was appealing once I’d matched those pieces.

Even given this negative-leaning bias, though I was intrigued by Refn’s Valhalla Rising. Writeups talking about its languorous, contemplative pace; the surreal storytelling; the brutality: all of that is right up my filmy alley. And Mads Mikkelson had become known to me, largely thanks to Casino Royale; I loved the potential of him as Valhalla’s central figure of mystique and aggression. The aforementioned “trying really hard and not achieving much” vibe of Refn’s movies seemed only in need of the right material to achieve more, if not something; Valhalla Rising’s surface (comparative) simplicity – a prisoner escapes; leads a charge to the promised land – seemed like a great opportunity for such material.

Kinda.

Valhalla’s vibes are right. The pacing; the overall look – it’s all what I wanted. But man, the tryhard spirit just runs so strong, and without more dialogue and direct action to tentpole that energy, Refn channels it into woo-woo, and it falls apart. A primary example, which structurally repeats throughout the movie: the imprisoned One-Eye (Mikkelsen) has a dream about discovering something that helps him escape, and the next day – this exact event happens. That’s fine. But for every repeat of this omen-and-then-it-happens, Refn previews the footage we will see, albeit with a red film filter, and then has Mikkelson look meaningfully off into the distance while as have upcoming events essentially spoiled.

For a movie about faith and fate, I realize we’re thematically on point, this just seems at the sacrifice of something more impactful. If it’s a visual format, do something more with the visuals to tell your story; instead for all of its dourness and moody harumphs, Valhalla Rising comes across as exceptionally thin: 90 minutes of doing and saying the same thing. We can be charitable and call the movie an art film; an experiment. If read that way, it draws into question why Refn didn’t sink further into abstraction, as the loose combination of Mads’ doomish prophesizing plus the other characters and their stories is enough to make clear that there is a whole movie going on here, or trying to, but the kind of impressionistic horror I feel was being attempted – think The Shining – isn’t visually striking enough or narratively absorbing enough to stick any kind of landing.

Valhalla Rising is vaguely set during 12th century viking times, with some Norsemen squabbling over a prisoner with one eye (all characters are only nicknamed throughout, hence “One-Eye”), as his vicious fighting prowess is being used in for-cash cage fights of sorts, and isn’t it time Norseperson A gave One-Eye to Norseperson B? The right amount of money makes this so; on the way to the exchange, One-Eye escapes, then calmly heads off on his own – save a boy (Maarten Stevenson) that’d been traveling with the men, and now chooses to follow him.

The Boy speaks for the completely silent One-Eye, which proves useful(-ish) when the duo run across some Christian missionaries, who are slaughtering heathens with the word of god (aka swords), and could use a one-eye to head to The Holy Land. The team-up happens, and a deathly boatride (one of the movie’s most effective vignettes) lands them somewhere… hostile. And each man in the group is left to their fate, which comes in various forms.

Refn and co-writer Roy Jacobsen split the film into titlecarded sections, which goes into a plus/minus: given the movie’s pace (lot of walking in silence) and continually oppressive vibe, even a 90-minute runtime can be a stretch, but these chapter breaks do a lot to give things back some structure, and imply tonal / emotional changes, even if they’re not actually on screen. At the same time, the very in-your-face nature of these titlecards (e.g. Hell) is part of the shallowness of the whole thing – like, yup, that’s exactly what we’re doing; no need to really read into anything. I actually listened to the score before seeing the movie, and it did confirm my guess: that it’s effective while watching, but not on its own: Peter Kyed’s & Peter Peter’s minimalist ambience effectively captures a kind of general hostility present in the lands through which we journey. And with DP Morten Søborg, Refn finds an incredible look for me the movie, edited in an interestingly passive-aggressive manner by Mat Newman, where some general “rules” are broken, amping up dream-like vibes. Mikkelsen is excellent, communicating much without speaking; Stevenson is very effective as well, juggling the naiveties and fears of a youth believably. Again, the movie essentially walks the walk.

But it’s in service of…? Ninety minutes that just kinda happen.